


August

by Kuruccha



Category: Samurai Champloo
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuruccha/pseuds/Kuruccha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That summer has the slight smell of Fuu’s <i>yukata</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August

That summer has the slight smell of Fuu’s _yukata_.

It stinks of the sunflower seeds hidden in the torn seams of her sleeves, of the hard soil on which they collapse to sleep; it has the scent of fish grilled on previous nights, of cheap incense they stole for her; it smells of the stagnant water on rice fields, of the _sake_ they offered to monks for a _Namu Amida Butsu_ ; it reeks of leather strings, of sweat aged on clothes, of treats left to rot on altars for the dead on _obon_.

Mugen counts one by one all the times she asks for his help. He stops only when they become so many that even figures lose their meaning, so he decides he’ll start again from a random number when the summer ends; when there will be no more feet to clean on behalf of a brat that can’t do it herself, no more swollen ankles hidden below the rim of a dusty _yukata_ , no more useless hysterics, no more pronounced plumpness. When that August will end, and another eighth month will as well.

It will be a child nurtured by a brat, but it will have water to grow up; water, and no blood, and rice enough to fill its stomach, and time enough to learn how to survive. It's not first child he sows. It will be the first, though, for whom he’ll put down roots.

He sinks his nose on the slight smell of Fuu’s yukata; his world on that summer disappears beyond the curve of her thin neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in Italian and then translated into English. No proof-reading, so I'm sorry if some of the sentences look a little odd. (Point me out all of my horrible mistakes, and I'll thank you dearly.)  
> I really love using this kind of non-visual-related details on my writings! :D


End file.
